Abstract
Previous work has revealed significant formal differences between English and German nominal compounds. This study extends the contrastive analysis of compounds to the semantic level. The empirical investigation is guided by two major questions: firstly, does the type of semantic relation between the constituents of compounds exert an influence on their English translations? Secondly, is there any difference in the range of idiomaticity covered by English and German compounds? The answer to both questions is in the negative. On the tests performed, English and German compounds do not differ semantically. This constitutes a notable form-meaning mismatch. This mismatch is argued to arise from the subordination of iconicity to freedom of expression. Moreover, the greater compound propensity in German compared to English cannot be put down to semantic effects. German leans towards uniform coding whereas English wavers between the compounding and the phrasal strategy. This competition is claimed to constrain compound use in English.
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